More Man Than Machine - on Tarkin & Vader’s relationship
One thing that really really sticks out to me about their dynamic in current canon is that Tarkin is one of the only people, if not the only one, who liked Anakin Skywalker as a person both before and after becoming a Sith Lord.
It makes sense for this to still be somewhat underappreciated since their relationship in Legends was apparently very negative, but Disney-era Vader and Tarkin have an astoundingly friendly and healthy personal dynamic.
So because I can never shut up about things I like, here’s a long collection of their best moments / essay-ish post of rambling about their new-canon dynamic.
The seeds of this are certainly already present in A New Hope (however accidentally, since at the time of filming the whole plot wasn’t yet planned..).
The movie very clearly demonstrates that Tarkin knows who Vader used to be and this is an established fact between them. They have talked about this before, maybe often, as there’s no uncertainty or confusion in their dialogue.
Vader is comfortable with Tarkin knowing this much, too, and sees no need to distance himself from Anakin in this speech (which he does even with Luke or Palpatine). In front of Tarkin, he uses first person to refer to his old life.
This makes clear that there is trust between them by ANH time, whether it be with this private knowledge or with military strategy (after all, Tarkin trusts Vader’s homing beacon plan, which ironically gets him killed in the end).
That is picked back up on in the Darth Vader comic series set after the movie:
We know that Vader thinks of the Death Star as a “technological terror” that he doesn’t approve of, yet he defends Tarkin’s plans for the battle station against Tagge without hesitation. Vader may not like the Death Star itself, but that doesn’t diminish his respect for Tarkin’s military ability.
The situation with Tagge is especially nice to view in contrast to Vader’s relationship with Tarkin, as Vader is technically placed under Tagge’s command in the comic. Which… Tagge repeats in, uh, very clear words.
Vader is… not taken with this. For understandable reasons. He does not need a hand to wield his lightsaber - at least not this hand.
But that puts this situation in a very stark contrast to Leia’s (also very…. interestingly worded) line in A New Hope.
Unlike Vader and Tagge in the comic, Vader and Tarkin don’t outrank each other. Tarkin holds no official command over Vader - and even if he did, Vader tends to undermine command anyway. Tagge certainly suffers through that.
Yet, it appears Vader listens to Tarkin often enough for this to be known outside their immediate military associates. Tarkin is the only person except for Palpatine that Vader ever shows this much deference to.
